


Julia Hillstone

by thraenthraen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:36:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5869813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thraenthraen/pseuds/thraenthraen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she at last retired from Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall knew she was leaving Hogwarts in good hands. She had seen Julia Hillstone through seven years as a student at Hogwarts, she had hired her after the war, and she had spent years working alongside her at Hogwarts. After all those years, Minerva was sure she knew Julia. She was wrong. </p>
<p>WARNING: this story contains spoilers for Scorpius Malfoy and the Unknown Journey (bit.ly/Scorpius). That said, /that/ story contains spoilers for this one, and there is no right or wrong order in which to read the stories. If you prefer a linear, "pure" reading of Scorpius' story, skip this one for now. </p>
<p>This is not currently updating on a set schedule. Tags reflect published chapters only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Forbidden Forest

“Have you ever kissed someone?” Tonks’ foot slipped on a root, and she grabbed her classmate’s shoulder for dear life. “Merlin, Tonks,” the other girl muttered, pulling Tonks back up. “You’re going to yank my arm off.”

“Have I ever—? What the hell kind of question is that?” Tonks asked. 

Julia shrugged, rubbing her shoulder. “An honest one?”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we're in the _Forbidden Forest_. I hardly think this is the time for _honest_ questions.” Tonks shook her head and continued trudging through the darkness. Sure, a lot had changed since their first year when they’d found something to fight over almost every day, and, sure, you could even say they were _friends_ now, but not the sort of friends who had heart-to-hearts during another night of detention in the Forbidden Forest. They talked about classes and quidditch, not _personal_ things. Curiosity got the best of her though, and before she could stop herself, Tonks asked, “Have _you_ ever kissed someone?” 

“Of course not,” Julia said, holding her chin up stiffly. Tonks rolled her eyes. Julia had grown on her, and she had certainly lightened up a bit over the years, but Julia was still a little goody two shoes. “Why would someone want to kiss _me_?” Julia muttered. “I’m probably terrible at it.” 

Tonks had no idea how to respond, so she just pretended not to hear. The thought of Julia snogging someone—especially _wanting_ to snog someone—was something Tonks could not imagine. Tonks tried to picture it, but who would Julia even snog? She started running through a mental list of all of the boys in their year, but none seemed right. Julia wouldn’t want to kiss some dirty teenage boy. Knowing her, she probably fancied a professor anyway. _That_ was even weirder to think about, and Tonks tried to push the thought from her head. 

“No,” Tonks said.

“What?”

“No, I’ve never snogged anyone.”

“ _Really_?” Julia stopped in her tracks. “But you’re so _popular_. People _like_ you.” Tonks snorted at the implication that no one liked Julia. 

“Who do you want to snog anyway?”

“ _What_?”

“C’mon, who do you fancy? I know you turned down that cute Ravenclaw boy, so it’s not him.”

“He’s like twelve, ew.”

“Thirteen.”

“Still ew.”

“I bet it’s a _professor_.” Tonks slid in front of Julia and faced her. She focused, and felt her face morph. “Dumbledore?” She pursed her lips through the white beard and made kissing noises at Julia, who dodged her and stumbled backward into a tree.

“ _Gross_. Put your normal face back. He’s like a million years old. That’s just _creepy_.” Tonks laughed and tried a new face. “No way,” Julia said, twisting her head away from Tonks. “Flitwick is just as old!” Tonks could almost hear the laugh in her voice though, and she couldn’t resist an opportunity to make someone laugh, especially someone as tightlaced and hard to get a laugh out of as Julia. 

“I bet I know who you fancy,” Tonks said, grinning. “Won’t be able resist me.” She stepped closer to Julia, leaned her head in, and morphed her face again.

Julia shrieked, pushed Tonks off her, and burst into laughter. “ _Filch_?! Bloody hell, Tonks!”

“Shhhh!” Tonks hissed. She closed the space between them again and clapped a hand over Julia’s mouth. “The werewolves will hear you swearing!” Julia pulled Tonks’ hand off her mouth but didn’t let go. 

“The full moon is next week,” Julia said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you ever listen in class?”

“No, that’s what you’re for.” Tonks grinned. She _liked_ this Julia. The moonlight didn’t just accentuate the curls of her hair; somehow, it was making her stubbornness, which usually annoyed Tonks, look _good_. The thought caught Tonks off guard.

“Right, you steal my notes, and what do I get out of this?” Tonks was suddenly incredibly conscious of Julia’s hand on hers and her own shortness of breath. She wondered if Julia could tell. 

“The joy of my company?” Tonks suggested, keeping her voice even. Julia laughed. “And of course my stunning good looks.” She morphed her mouth and nose into a beak just as a twitch of Julia’s hand made her stumble forward. Tonks’ beak nipped at Julia’s jaw as she stumbled, and Julia tossed her head back and howled with laughter. The sound was foreign to Tonks, and she wanted more of it. Tonks morphed her beak into a pig snout and snorted into Julia’s ear. Julia squirmed, but her hand tugged Tonks closer to her. The pig snout became a dog snout, and Tonks licked at the side of Julia’s laughing face.

“ _Tonks_!” Julia gasped through her laughter. “We’re in the _Forbidden Forest_!” Her free hand slid around the back of Tonks’ neck, sending a tingling sensation down Tonks’ spine. Tonks morphed her face back to normal and leaned her forehead against Julia’s, trying to catch her own breath and practically breathing in Julia’s laughter. Tonks brought her free hand to Julia’s cheek and clumsily slid her fingers into the other girl’s curly hair. Julia’s breathing caught, and the forest became suddenly silent. “Tonks?” Julia whispered, and Tonks kissed her.


	2. Dregs

“Good evening, Miss Hillstone,” Professor McGonagall said to the teenage girl hovering nervously at the door of her office. 

“Evening, professor,” Julia said. 

“Come, sit.” McGonagall gestured to the chair on the opposite side of her desk. Julia walked carefully to the seat, set her book bag down on the floor, and sat on the edge of the seat. “Tea?”

“Yes please, professor.” McGonagall flicked her wand. After a brief silence, the teapot poured hot tea into two cups. They each took a cup. 

“How are you?”

Julia shrugged. “I'd be a lot better if I wasn't such rubbish at transfiguration.” 

McGonagall frowned. “Miss Hillstone—”

“Look, I’m rubbish, you don’t need to tell me I’m not. I just need—” she stopped herself and took a swig of tea. She sighed. “I just need to exceed expectations. It counts as Exceeds Expectations if everyone expects me to completely fail but I only _partly_ fail, right?”

“I expect you to pass.” 

“Fine, will you let me take N.E.W.T. Transfiguration if I pass?”

Professor McGonagall looked at her sternly. “I only take students who achieve marks of Exceeds Expectations or Outstanding, no exception. Merely passing will not prepare you enough for my class, Miss Hillstone.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “I _have_ to take your class, professor.”

“There are plenty of important careers that do not require a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration, Miss Hillstone.”

“I have to be an Auror.”

“You do not—”

“Tell that to Dumbledore.”

“ _Professor_ Dumbledore. Now I do not know where you have gotten this idea that he has ordered you to become an Auror, but I can assure you that Professor Dumbledore—”

“I just need _help_ ,” Julia pleaded. “I need more lessons. I've read all the theory dozens of times now. Every book you’ve given me, every book in the library, I get it. I just can't _do_ it.”

Professor McGonagall sighed. “I am happy to give you more lessons, Miss Hillstone, but perhaps what you need is to be taught differently, not more.” Julia frowned. “Miss Tonks—”

“No,” Julia said firmly. “I spend enough time in detention already.”

“Then perhaps you should ask Mister Weasley.”

“Which one? The little know-it-all runt Percy?”

“Charlie. I am sure both of you could benefit from spending a bit more time together.” Julia raised an eyebrow. “Academically speaking.”

“If you're going to set me up with a Weasley, couldn't you at least pick the good-looking one?”

“Miss Hillstone!” McGonagall said sharply. 

“What? It’s not like I fancy Bill.” Julia finished off her tea and set the cup upside down. McGonagall gave her a stern look. “Okay, okay, fine, I’ll talk to Charlie, but don't blame me if he gets the wrong idea when I ask him to _study_ with me. We’re not in first year anymore, you know. Even if he doesn’t think it, everyone else will.” 

“I will speak to him.”

“Brilliant.” Julia flipped the cup back over and looked at McGonagall. “So that’s on top of the extra lessons, right? You’re not just passing me off onto Weasley, right?”

“Of course not,” McGonagall said, her voice kinder.

“Good.” Julia dropped her eyes to the table.

“Shall we get started then?” 

Julia didn’t respond. She was staring into her tea cup.

“Miss Hillstone?” 

Julia picked up the cup and shoved it under McGonagall’s nose. “What do you see?” Her voice was panicked.

“I see dregs.” Julia pulled the cup back and looked in it again. 

“There’s a dragon—that means trouble—next to—well, it’s either the grim or a dog, but either way, next to a dragon, that’s—”

“Nothing that you should be concerned about,” Professor McGonagall said firmly. “Professor Trelawney—”

“Is dramatic, I know. I didn’t learn tessomancy from her though, and I don’t think I’m going to _die_ , but the dog represents friends, and I don’t want tr—”

“Perhaps you will soon befriend a dragon.” 

“Ah, yes, that’s it,” Julia said icily. “Professor Kettleburn did say we were going to start working with dragons next week, after all.”

“I am sure your sarcasm will go over wonderfully when you start Auror Training.”

“The best Aurors are Moody, after all.”

McGonagall coughed, trying rather unsuccessfully to hide her laugh, and forced her face to look serious. “Right, yes, Vanishing. I think you can manage vanishing the tea, can you not?”

Julia sighed, took out her wand, and began what felt like her thousandth private Transfiguration lesson. 


	3. Weasley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably be a new chapter of either this or Scorp each week for at least the next few weeks, hopefully going to be able to keep it going long-term, but life is wild, y'all, so we'll see.

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” Julia jumped, somehow managing to transfigure the teapot into a oddly shaped lemon of all things, and looked up to see a small boy hovering over her, arms crossed and scowling.

“Sitting,” she said. She looked back at her now-lemon, which, upon closer inspection, seemed to have a spout which was currently steaming. 

“This is _Gryffindor_ ’s quidditch practice,” the boy said. “You’re not on Gryffindor’s team.” Julia looked back up at the boy. He had to be a First Year, she decided, and one of the smallest First Years at that.

“Neither are you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well, your team is up there then.” She pointed to the small flecks of red racing around the quidditch pitch above them.  “Go on.”

“You’re spying.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “If I was going to spy, I’d at least sit somewhere I can actually  _ see _ what they’re doing. And anyway, I haven’t a clue how to play quidditch.” The boy’s jaw dropped, and he let his arms fall to his sides.

“You don’t know how to play _quidditch_?” 

Julia shrugged. “I know you race around on broomsticks and score points but one person gets to score way more points, so the game is incredibly imbalanced, but it’s not like I know any _strategy_.”

“Quidditch is  _ not _ imbalanced! No, okay, see, it’s like this—” He sat down next to Julia and began an elaborate explanation of every aspect of the game, from positions and balls, to famous plays and teams, throwing in the names of players Julia had never even heard of every so often until they were finally interrupted by the thuds of feet nearby as the Gryffindor Quidditch Team all dismounted their brooms by the locker rooms. The boy jumped up and, without another word to Julia, ran off to follow the team into the locker room and began spouting off at them something about a strategy he thought they should try. Charlie Weasley glanced over at her, said something to his teammate, and then jogged over to her.

“Hey, sorry, practice doesn’t usually go so long. C’mon, I’ll just be a minute.” He held out his hand to help her up. Julia ignored his hand, shoved her things in her bag, and stood up on her own. He shrugged and walked to the locker room, and Julia followed. She regretted following him as soon as she walked in, as the putrid smell of sweaty teenage athletes hit her nose. 

“Welcome to—” Weasley began.

“She’s not a Gryffindor!” the boy shrieked, seeing her. The girl he had been talking to looked at her and then at Weasley. 

“It’s fine. I told her to come. We’re supposed to be going over an assignment for McGonagall.”

The girl shrugged. “Debrief in five, Weasley. I’m going to go shower.” She grabbed a towel from one of the benches and headed toward a door at the other end of the room. The boy followed.

“Why’d you let her stay? Are you gonna—” 

“ _Wood_ ,” she said firmly. She put her hands on his shoulders and crouched down at his level. “This is the  _ girl’s _ showers. You can’t come in. Girls get  _ naked _ in here.” The boy’s face went white.

“Ew, _gross_ ,” he said. 

“Go on, just go put the brooms back in the broomshed while everyone showers, okay?” He nodded and began collecting the brooms which were scattered around the room. The girl went through the door and disappeared as it closed.

“I’ll just shower real quick,” Weasley said, “and then hopefully Theroux will let me go so we can get to work, okay? Sorry.”

“You can stop apologising. It’s fine.”

“Okay, sor—er, yeah. Shower.” He grabbed a towel and went into the boy’s shower room. Julia looked at Wood, who was struggling to carry a large pile of broomsticks toward the door.

“Here, kid,” she said. “I can take some.”

“I’ve got it,” he said, just as they all slipped out of his grip and spilled onto the floor. “Meant to do that.” He knelt down and started picking them up. Julia pulled her wand out of her robes and, with a quick flick and the right incantation, a long bit of rope flew from one corner of the room and tied all but one of the brooms together. Wood stopped trying to pick up brooms and stared at Julia. “ _Cool_.”

“You’ll know this one by now, I think. _Wingardium leviosa_!” The bundle lifted off the ground and hovered in the air. 

“Oh, yeah!” The boy took out his wand, looked determinately at the remaining broom, and very carefully said, “ _Wingardium leviosa!_ ” The broom lifted off the ground. “Ha! Did it!” He threw his hands up and the broom crashed into the ceiling and clattered back down. “Oops.” He used the spell again, and this time didn’t send it flying into the ceiling.

“I don’t know where we’re going, so you’ll have to lead the way,” Julia said. 

“Oh, right. See? Couldn’t do it without me.” He grinned and led the way out of the locker rooms and to the broomshed, which was a short walk away. Julia freed the bundle of broomsticks, and Wood showed her where each one went. Once they had put all of the brooms away, they walked back to the locker rooms together.

“—which is going to be crucial in our match against Slytherin,” the girl from earlier was saying to the rest of the Gryffindor team who had gathered around her in the locker room. “Oh, hiya, Hufflepuff, Wood.” She nodded at them, and the other players turned their heads to look as well. Julia felt her face burn as she realised that the team were all in towels and undergarments and quickly looked down at the ground. 

“Is it all right if I—” Charlie Weasley started to say to the girl, who Julia decided was probably the captain.

“Yeah, go on, McGonagall would have my head if I kept you from your homework. I’ll catch you up tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Theroux. Sorry.” He got up, went to one of the lockers, and quickly put on the rest of his clothing. A few awkward (for Julia, at least) minutes later, and he and Julia were at last out of the locker room and headed to the castle.

“Sorry practice went so late,” he said as they walked across the lawn.

“It’s fine,” Julia said. 

“I just don’t want you to think I don’t want to do this. I mean, I know we’re not exactly _friends_ , but I would have said yes even if McGonagall hadn’t asked. It’s just quidditch—”

“It’s _fine_ , Weasley. You already told me you play quidditch, I get it. Sometimes my secret Hufflepuff cult meetings run long too.”

“You have _secret Hufflepuff cult meetings_? I mean it’s fine if—”

Julia gasped and put her hands on the sides of her face. “Who told you that!? Those are _secret_!”

He laughed. “Oh. Tonks is wearing off on you then, I see.” Julia rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon, you never would have made a joke first year.”

“How would you know? We’ve talked all of like three times before now, and one of those was you telling me to meet you after your quidditch practice today.”

“What? No, we sat next to each other in Potions for _three years_. It would be four, but we have Potions with the Slytherins now.”

“Okay, fine, but we didn’t _talk_.”

“You saved my potions like every week first year. Snape would always try to take points from Gryffindor, and then you’d complain and say  _ Hufflepuff _ should lose points since  _ you _ were the one messing with my potions.”

“That doesn’t count as us talking. I was talking to Snape because he’s a bloody tyrant.”

He laughed. “Tonks is totally wearing off on you.”

“Or maybe you’re just now noticing that I’m not just the nice, quiet kid who fixes your terrible potions.”

“My potions were not _terrible_.”

“You  _ fell asleep _ trying to make the girding potion last year. So much for endurance.”

“I was just tired. Quidditch practice went really late the night before.”

“Weasley, the fumes were putting  _ me _ to sleep.”

Weasley laughed. “Okay, so my potions are pretty bad. Anyway, where’d you want to go?” They’d made it to the castle doors, and he nodded ahead.

Julia shrugged. “There’s an old classroom on the second floor that’s usually unlocked.”

“Lead the way.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want a wholesome fic about scrawny little Oliver Wood trying to prove he's good enough to be a quidditch star and he's just so terrible at first, and--okay, I wrote this whole paragraph and deleted it because I need to be stopped before I write a whole fic in the end notes. Get me a time turner though, and I will make this fic happen.


End file.
